... A contractor just pleaded guilty to stealing classified information from the US National Security Agency, about 50GB worth of data. This isn't a case of spying or malicious intent. Instead, the report is that the employee was a hoarder, just keeping copies of data for some unknown reason. Hopefully that's true ...
If you follow the link the news stories cite 50 (TB) not 50GB.
With a dataset that large, it makes one wonder which NSA database he downloaded. Maybe this guy was wanting to spin up his own implementation of a domestic surveillance program in his basement using a make shift Hadoop cluster.
Whether this is considered theft should be based on how many security controls he had to bypass in order to download that much data. Did he login using a privileged account? Did he siphon off a little at a time in an effort to avoid detection? Does the NSA have so much spare network bandwidth that a 50 TB dump wasn't noticed while in process?
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho